In this interview for STATUS/الوضع, host Noura Erakat speaks with Homa Hoodfar about her ordeal and more broadly about the precarious status of academic freedom and knowledge production.

In early 2016, Homa traveled to Iran for personal and professional reasons. After a month-long stay, just one day before her departure, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard confiscated her travel documents and prevented her from leaving. They arrested her three months later. Professor Hoodfar spent 112 days, or about 4 months, in jail before Iran released her to Oman and finally back home to Montreal. Find out more about her experiences, and how this shaped her perceptions today, in this Status/الوضع interview with Noura Erakat.

Homa Hoodfar is a Canadian-Iranian sociocultural anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal.